In processing continuous filament glass strands and rovings, it is sometimes necessary to supply simultaneously more than one individual strand or roving to one or more packages, but prior apparatus has failed to function fully satisfactorily in such operations.
It has been a practice to use guide members or "shoes" to establish desired spaced apart side-by-side operating strand paths along which strands advance to a collecting package or packages. These guide members have been of varying shapes, such as, for example, that shown and discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,821,543.
There have been difficulties with conventional guide members in the fiber forming operation. A guide member is positioned below the applicator apparatus which applies a liquid coating to the filaments. There has been a problem with the alignment of the guide member in relation to the coated filaments. In practice, the guide member may not be held normal to the strand path, and thus, stripping or wiping of the coating material from the filaments onto the guide member can occur. This stripping of the size material causes loss of control of the coating on the filaments and results in the waste of size material. These problems can significantly affect the economic operation of a fiber forming operation.
An improvement is needed.